Practicing Progress (The Promise and Limitations of Enlightenment. Festschrift for John A. McCarthy)

Practicing Progress focuses on the German Enlightenment in its dual manifestation as a cultural era and as a mode of discourse. The volume’s unifying theme is the promise and limitations of the Enlightenment, as seen from the twenty-first century. Contributors deal with figures from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries in theology, poetry and drama, economic theory, and music. Included are such powerful critics of the politics of progress as Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, and Bertolt Brecht. The volume is of particular interest to scholars concerned with the complexity of literary phenomena. A variety of interpretive approaches yield fresh insights into the still ongoing project of Enlightenment.